Baslinux mailing list

["Sheldon Isaac" <sheldonhisaac AT gmail.com>]

> From: sindi keesan <keesan AT SDF.ORG>
> Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2012 16:09:37 +0000 (UTC)

Much snipping.

> On a laptop with multiple operating systems (XP, BL2, BL3 and other 
> linuxes) I was booting with lilo (boot.ini had a line in it referring
> to c:\boot\bootsec5.lnx which was a copy of the first 512 bytes of 
> /dev/hda5) when suddenly I would get LIL- instead of LILO.
> 
> I reran lilo the first few times this happened and things worked again
> but today they did not.  So I edited lilo.conf to use /dev/hda6 instead
> of /dev/hda5, copied the 512 bytes of that to c:\boot
> (dd if=/dev/hda6 of=bootsec6.lnx bs=512 count=1
> cp bootsec6.lnx /hd/boot)
> and it works again.  Windows bootloader now looks at /dev/hda6 not 5.
> 
> See the archives for dual booting XP or 2K with linux using lilo.
> It requires editing boot.ini.
> 
> I think the area of /dev/hda5 used by lilo must have worn out, as happens 
> when
> hard drives no longer boot due to MBR area wearing out.  Can anyone explain
> this more technically?

Thanks, Sindi, for this info and tip.
 
> This multi-boot method requires a FAT32 file system for XP

I wonder about that:  I have a refurbished Acer Acpire One (8.9" screen) 
netbook and a hand-me-down Dell Dimension 8300 desktop, 2004 vinage.

Each has XP booting from an NTFS partition, the C: drive.
The boot.ini files includes a line for a file on C:\  (it's analogous to 
your c:\boot\bootsec5.lnx) which is a copy of the first 512 bytes of 
a VFAT partition where /boot/grub is.

I may have misunderstood what you said. 

By the way, I see that you've posted on the http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy 
forum.


Thanks,

Sheldon

> , which means I could also plug in a USB floppy drive and boot to DOS thence
> to BL to fix things.  It does not seem to work with NTFS.